Happens in a loving way that there is a great move back one but coming out on the pipeline so then it just started like that and here you are. I love the foot the fact that you are here. The nonfiction bookstore and the categories of culture and thank you for all of that. Want to introduce you doctor niles, thank you so much b17. I am proud to be introducing my friend and colleague as a fierce intellectual force also one of the nicest and warmest people youll ever meet as an author and University Teacher prize winning works but first the family getting freedom next the house on the diamond hill to follow those with the study of race and gender dark tourism then memories of slavery. Also a writer of fiction and feminist essays and the cherokee rose is set on present day georgia. The Publishers Weekly pick in 2015. And another book that all georgians should read with the department of american culture, history and womens studies. 2011 Macarthur Foundation fellow. [applause] her current work was supported by a new directions fellowship that is the book we are here tonight to launch and celebrate so please lets welcome her again. [applause] i will set for a moment in my throne so i do what she instructs me to do. How happy i am and how warm this space feels. And i am so grateful to be invited to do this and also for you to come out to discuss this history and to learn more about the city of detroit. Were i would like begin as what was set out to me from the research and then have time for discussion with question and answer. I am hopeful we can talk about what we collectively think what they mean and how that is an asset to solve the problem today. Let me tell you how i came to this project. I grew up a strong identity of a granddaughter of a leader immigration in cincinnati. I associated the ohio river with freedom with that line slavery and freedom. You could be kentucky and that was painful that i grew up in a free state. So taking a position here at the university of michigan and when i got here i had to relearn my place. But this is a different kind of place one of the reasons why is because of the international order. Of those africanamerican studies courses graduates from years ago that one of the things that we did with that Historical Museum and what really sat with me with the underground railroad when i learned for the first time how active southeast michigan was with the underground railroad to recognize as i got to go to the Historical Museum. But they had the underground railroad to get the imagination going. We did research and projects that is what got me interested in local history for the underground railroad. And doing Research Woman from the area i ended up reading her memoir she kept referring to the laws of michigan in a very proud way. So i was looking at some of those. She fought for black freedom and black rights and equality that in the state of michigan they tried to get their freedom in the years before the civil war. With those previous michigan laws made slavery possible to tacitly sanction slavery. So before there was slavery and then i felt that was the story i needed to tell. I was teaching and didnt know anything about it. I felt the access of knowledge was disrespectful and the people that came even before the abolitionist who lives of great suffering and sorrow but were heroic and they pushed for their freedom and banded together. Once i had the good fortune to apply for ann arbor i got the money we just wanted to see what we could uncover with a history of detroit we spent a lot of time in the Detroit Public Library that had an incredible list of materials. One was from ontario. And then she hit the archives in ontario finding out more information for our project. So we would see what we could find and through that was translating some of that information someone is french and german so transcribing the information all the documents and that fancy cursive i had a magnifying glass even to see what it said. So it took us a couple years to get to the point to say we have a sense of the enslaved population. We have listen of the job they were doing. And at that point i realized even though it had taken quite a while actually those were few and far between. But then there was enough material to tell a story because from that point on i tried to piece together the story. I felt like i was dealing with the breadcrumbs with a little and a little there. But very few full and complete stories for scholars would rely on the narrative but they could write and have published after they escaped so those of slave people or that here is we dont have that slave narrative we barely have mention of the people in the record it wasnt that same type of infrastructure and also because the great fire of 1805 so piecing this together was like working with breadcrumbs and then i felt that there was enough to at least create a composite picture. So i will tell you a little bit about these individuals but i want to share the findings then we will shift to q a. Some of them were miami, fox. Often times but not always and traded by other people and finally traded into the hands of the european settlers. First the french, then the british. A few americans were Still Holding into the early 18 hundreds. So thats about i think the most important thing that we have discovered on the machine. Its affected native american women and the kind of slavery that they endured was abominab abominable. I think you can probably anticipate what im about to s say. And slave to native american women were put into european households and they did Domestic Work in favor of the victims of sexual slavery. We are familiar with this and know at this point africanamerican women were sexually assaulted and abused and is the regular course of their experience. So weve discovered native american women were also and that in fact some of these merchants and traders in detroit, some of the richest ones woul with big specific pure orders asking. Now the name they use and the terms they use was panis and scholars tried to work out where the term came from. Its come up with a very good theory which is that this term publiclprobably is the collapsif the various travel means especially panis. The term panis came to be used for all of the native enslaved people here in detroit. Some of them were merchants and would write letters to one another to the island for instance and they would say i need to love the pretty panis anand they would say the age thy wanted and that kind of language is an indicator that were want wanted. Especially given the continuing vulnerability and invisibility often types of indigenous girls and young women. And we also found in addition to native women, africanamerican men were highly sought out by traders and merchants here in detroit. There is a man named James Stirling who established a shop and before he even got here he started trying to ask around to see if he could get black men to buy them which was his indication that he felt he couldnt really set up shop. He was able to buy a few young black men and the comment spoke in the indigenous languages. They commented that they were better workers which is part of the reason that he preferred them. So, black men were actually the Railroad Cars that were carrying the jurors and made it so limited. I am talking about their bodies. But that was the motor for the distribution. Think about preferred trade. That for a trade. We recognize that it was the hunting that they did to differentiate them british and people in the team on the trade iand then to the east and also across the ocean in france and england we recognize that was a major fuel of the Worldwide Global entry. I didnt know that black men did that give off the labor packing and carrying the spurs for the cost and defend the efficient minded merchants here in detroit moved to places like new york and the weather turned cold. They would when the river god wanted it could come back. The goods exchanged back in detroit and black men and native american men but also skilled on the great lakes all the time. The wealthiest merchants would say i cant spare, i nee need hn manonline vote. But when it came time, the white men were being paid to do that work and enslaved died working the great lakes which could be described that way. They are dangerous waters. Its not because they wanted to, but they are separated from werm their families doing this work. What stands out to me is a story owned by the merchant who was a judge and someone that was very instrumental in the university of michigan and they were working in the household and never picked the time to name these individuals for us. There was a terrible shipwreck and he was killed in iraq so thethe wreckso they wrote to hid first he lost a valuable man but he didnt talk much about the other, he talked about property thats gone and then he says they wont do any work they justly around crying. Through the story we get a glimpse of a black family that loves one another, cares for one another, that is stressed and falls apart when one is taken by the waters. So when he cant work because he is in mourning, he gets this wonderful idea maybe if i buy this one but will cheer her up if its any indication of how the family has been split and divided. A native American Woman enslaved in detroit and if this is difficult to get at because we dont have the material over the record. Im grateful to them for letting me see their records. They are receptive but also said youre not going to find anything about the slaves in these records. What we do know is that she was enslaved and pregnant and then. They were both saying that the baby should come to them. Now they were not saying Something Like this is my child. I want that child, they were just saying the panis, remember, indian slave, the panis should come to me. So it turns out the master gunsmith one in that conflict and would have positions in this instance and what happened to the woman, we dont know. Ive thought about this and thought about her many nights. Probably the victims of Sexual Exploitation and then seeing her child taken away by one of the few. There are details of the panis children from infants, little babies being born right here in detroit who die before they even have a chance at life. Many of these stories were very upsetting to discover. And i can see in your i is thatt it is distressing to hear them. One of the things that was important for me and the students doing this work is that all the people whose stories i told you about even though we dont know their names, we are remembering them and that means we are honoring and recognizing them and they contributed in incredible ways to the growth of detroit and their suffering is not in vain because we hold them in our heart to end our spirits. In addition to that, they thought why was that women in prison. So i did some wondering about that. Did she try to run up a come of what kind of role did she break . That doesnt take away the power and despite the people in detroit, the records have all of these stories of so and so upset because a woman hid her were brought the case to court because they held a knife to him. There are people running away constantly. They can run in multiple directions. They are running to the indian communities surrounding detroit. They are taking every advantage that they see to be free. One of the most dramatic moments takes place after 1800 this story those of you that have been to the museum had seen the plaque in favor of that theyre better and when William Tucker the owner died, they basically reeled at the familwielded the e and could have told him that at any time and they could go to her children and she could have told them the proceeds and so on, so its about going to court and sue them for their childrens freedom. The children should be free because after all it is the northwest territory. For the freedom of all their children if they had resulted in the first legislation about leaving detroit which was a gradual emancipation plan. They wouldv would be boring foe born free. There was a partial victory and in the land they didnt like the ruling and the judgment so they took off to canada and not very long after that the governor of the territory came and asked him if he would lea leave the milito detroit. You did hear what i just said. Governor william hall asked them to lead a militia and he did as it was described. This is a group of enslaved men who ran away and took this opportunity to have their freedom guaranteed. And that was possible because ie detroit needed them. Willig in the hall was so terrified of the attack he was wrong on that score by the way, a little paranoid, he was willing to do anything despite the criticism, and let me tell you the letters that survived and who saw all these then are incredible and even if they they recognize those are our people over there. So yes, this material in the story is distressing and we have to think about them and care about what they went through but it is inspiring because it shows just what people can do no matter how blessed they are. So i will stop there. Thank you so much. [applause] everybody take a deep breath. The good news is we have a microphone in the back and we will use it for the question and answer. If we can find a more comfortable space up here. We love the comments and you can make them very short to think about a question that you would like to ask. What we are going to do is buy will cost you a end you will be number one if you remember your numbers i will call you buy them or. If you have a question, think about it. One, two, three, four. Five and six. Thank you for the kind of effo effort. The therapy that we didnt get on the socalled emancipation. But going over this material would include your team. Did it accept an emotional toll and does it continue to because i noticed you were talking about the women and i wonder we should feel this way when we come across this information because that then becomes the therapy that we didnt get. We need to get angry and all posting as people go through when they have proper therapy after a trauma. How much of an emotional toll did that create for you . Get this the recognition thae material is serious. Ive been studying slavery for a long time now, and i wonder sometimes not why i do it but how and i remember many years ago when i first came across a record that talked about and enslaved man committing suicide and how i cried upon meeting that record and i called my mother and told her about it and said why am i doing this. She said it didnt choose you. We do the kind of work whether it is in the present day where we are exposing ourselves to peoples emotions and suffering. I think about how at least somebody that works on documents and records in the past theres a little bit of distance. What about the social workers and psychologists, people that hear the about this today. They emphasized the importance of actually having the understanding of what youre doing. One of the things shes done for me throughout the process is to tell me that she thought this work was important. The encouragement helps you to keep going. Wonderful presentation. Thank you very much. What are some of your thoughts on how we deal with a name that you mentioned that are recording the lives of slave holders and what are your thoughts on renaming that as a popular theme in the culture right now . I want to give a short preamble. To try to understand the sites we had in the research we were walking down the street and we looked up and realized. We didnt expect that going in that way. It is a very strange thing but all of a sudden you realize. Once you realize that i think two things happened. On the one hand, i know my students were angry and felt like why didnt anybody tell us this . They felt that this information had been withheld from them. And this is what i try to get out in the piece that youve referenced. So what did we do, open a can of worms. I guess what i think about is the support to recognize it and be forthright and talk about it and discuss it. Encourage the communities to talk it through and work it out. Some of the statutes need to be taken out. The process would also be different dependent upon the location and the community and the kind of monument that we are talking about. So i think it needs to be a Community Discussion at that level and at the very least, people will talk to one another. Twopart question, number one, its obviously emotionally draining. What do you do to get a arrested and i was fascinated. It made a big difference and also with other members of the communities. It wasnt damaging to work with the materials. What was the second part of the question, remind me. We didnt do the whole run of the material. We have to choose the book and its we are not experts in french. If you ask my teacher how i did, she would say and one member of the team also hired professional translators for this. I was wondering first of all thank you so much for coming here and telling us the story i never knew about before. I wonder did you come across in your research and stories of collaboration between the Indigenous Community and African American community to escape things from slavery and freedom in the support between the community for that . Yes and thank goodness. One of the major things i take away from this research is when the land is taken away from them it hurts them but it also hurts africanamericans because in this region where we are in the part of the country than native plans for a buffer zone in the record indicates when they ran into the native species and the owners didnt want to take them there. They were afraid. That was with the protection for africanamericans. As native people were being dispossessed in this area, africanamericans have fewer places to go. In addition to that, there were a few examples of families that were formed and were able to bond and live together and even run away together. There is a historian here at detroit mercy giving a lot of work on these questions right now. They are looking for the bits of information is one thing i can point you to is he is a person who is believed to be the model for uncle tom. They were taken in by the camp and spent the night there and they were actually lost and the native people they stayed with pointed them in the right direction, so i think that there are many examples of this. Im interested in how you explain the cultural differences. Is it between the recordkeeping in the south. I dont think it is so much of a cultural difference as a population and structural difference. In detroit the numbers were small we are talking about 1300 people in the early years to 85 and enslaved in the early years of. They describe it as a place where people are using their innovation and creativity and wit just to make a living here because if they were not native, you didnt know what they were doing so it would be difficult to sit down and pe ten this letr about enslaved people. It wiped a lot of things out. One, two, three. Thank you for coming. In the scene of Natural Disaster and the scene of the crime could you explain that . I can, and thank you for coming. Over the last several years, the public eye is one thats focused on this connotation is something that became this Research Indicates to me its nothing natural about it. Its that individuals that are interested only in profit and are willing to explain that profit, they came in and they tore the place up. That is the crime that im talking about, and i think that there is a correlation between the modern history that things fall apart when people make these decisions and when governments make concessions and Companies Make these decisions. Thats what i meant by that. Stealing the native land is a crime. The whole country is founded on the native land and enslaved. Thank you for bringing to light things we havent really thought about. Im curious about the record. In the forms of a register and list them in the case of the people their age and what activity they were in a sometimes they were permitted to be married in the catholic faith. Every once in a while the priest would write a sentence or paragraph and as a researcher, you live for those moments but for the most part it was a pretty barebones record. In addition to the church record, the majority of what we were able to find for merchant records. We could find people in these transactions into some of the merchants were writing letters that had been preserved and sean is one of those figures. If you read a lot of history you will see his name often and it is partly because he was wealthy and influential, but also because he wrote a lot and as a scholar, we had the limitation of records to help us begin but we could use other things which is partly why we came here and try to find them in detroit. We ended up feeling the site was a Detroit River and in fact we have a website about this if youre curious and the students wrote about their experience in the photograph. Church record, merchants record, the court cases, the note of attorneys when they are dealing with freedoms and things like that. Some personal letters and state records and the world. As a combination is there any record to come across a the native people and African People [inaudible] theres other areas weve come across it sounds like you know quite a lot about [inaudible] she is a historian and has written all about how she looks closely at the jim crow era and people on the one hand have to protect themselves from the segregation and racism but also try to fight the clan so i would look for her work and theres a number of instances such as one family that decides to fight against slavery. Some of them are more dramatic. The best example has to do with the seminole nation of florida and africanamericans who were enslaved usually in georgia and were able to run up a hand were taken away by the seminole nation. They waged a collaborative war against the united states. They worked together and could try to fight back. But theres a whole other side to this. I do want to say that the past is never simple or pretty or celebratory and at the same time that they did form alliances, they also did each other wrong. I didnt talk about this because i only have a certain amount of time, but i can give you an example. Now there were not very many, there were just maybe a handful of these individuals but they were involved in the first tra trade. Its certainly not the case that people saw themselves as natural allies we have five right here and then we will take one more. I was wondering if there was a name for that . [inaudible] it was presented in woodward avenue and whether or not they could be granted their freedom. He decided that he had to make the ruling based on International Law so what they had agreed to with Great Britain referred to as the treaty. If people were born in 96 and before that he wasnt going to violate the previous treaties between the u. S. And Great Britain and france and with that said they could continue to own slaves. Someone who owned them and had slaves there, can you elaborate a little bit of . I think that i have recently done a tour and it was very interesting. In my experience, thats how i ended up in the story because it was the most recent place that i had been when ther there was ann of a slave holder. Over time, european settlers came in and tried to find a way to wrangle the fly and whether or not it was legal to. They saw what was happening and as owas of the increasing europn settlement and the pressures to sell and so theyve lived through detroit and wanted to strike it rich with three main things and a fourth one. They got that wouldve a up aboe land as they could. They were engaged in the first trade and they got jobs with the government. They realize having the governments job gives opportunities to get more wealth. They were rich and fertile land that they wanted. Im going to ask obvious questions we can get a few more people and then we will do some book signings. We have a question with you. I am finding myself reading a lot of materials to piece together the putting them together can be difficult. I know that who i was using im and knowinis who iam and knowins important to me and i dont know how to say why they are important to me. I just know that they are. Im from oakland california. My mothers family came from virginia at my fathers came from new orleans. I know he was a great migration that took us west but im trying to piece those pieces together. I am wanting to find this myself specifically and for someone who has no background in Historical Research into documents, do you have any tests or suggestions or advice as to the best course of action with a limited budget and nobody backing my research. I saw another hand. Okay. Put those two together many of us have access. Your dad may be, the person thats looking you right now can take you to some place like staples and get it laminated for you and you can have your book and i hope you do it. There are a lot of people interested in this kind of research. Not being alone in this is recognizing you are not alone and its something that we discussed earlier about not being alone in the research paid a number of websites i found my Research Pathway for my book. Its very helpful because then you get to outsource and you dont feel alone. If you go to the Detroit Public Library thats one thing. There are workshops and presentations to learn how to do some of this in a stepbystep way to and in addition to that i would say find a book that you really appreciate i and take otr steps that a person took it to see if you can identify the forces they use and where they went to the. At the Geological Society they do conferences this month or next month. And in disorganizatio this orgah the resources of information out where to search for other backgrounds to do that research and it will help as a part of their membership and work. They are very fortunate to have them to tap into. Well, we love to hear every single voice, and i wish that we have more for everybody to ask the question but i know that there is something burning in your heart and mind, just a word or two. So i want you to think about it. When i save one, two, three using what you want to say and shes going to get it all. [inaudible] [laughter] [applause] more than 10,000 women who were breaking the codes of the Japanese Naval codes and army they were reading signals all over the world including some that were coming out of north africa, so it was a massive effort to recruit women secretly so they were tapped to secretly and called in to private interviews with professors and they were asked two questions are you engaged to be married. And a number of them actually live on the second question and said they were not because it was quite a bit more interesting waiting around while their fiance was fighting in risking his life in the war. So those women joined the navy and would be joined by enlisted as well who came from california, oklahoma, all over the country and mean while the army was recruited for its own. And again, marriage was sort of the theme. A lot of these women were interested in getting rid of these hasty engagements that they felt a little bit pressured him to win the war started. It was top secret and they had security clearances and to talk about their work would be treason so they were told to tell people they sharpened pencils, they were secretaries and that is what they did and continued to do after the war and people believe them so in some ways they were the ideal Intelligence Officers because they believe whatever they were doing it couldnt possibly be in port and. All of these offers have appeared on the tv. You can watch them on the website booktv. Org. Im going to say to everybody the problem is not that you are black or white, its that you are part of what i call the invisible class. You are invisiblyoure invisibld wealth and you dont feel like your vote count. Some people become elected in the office and represent your interests and public interest, but we endorsed that. Its an extremely important point which beams the bad guys when. I want to make it clear to that there is a bogeyman in your life but its not just your lifetime avp of everybody in america because 70 are living from paycheck to paycheck. So, if you are living in new york city making 70,000 are struggling to make ends meet. Atlanta georgia making 50,000 a year, 40,000 a year which is middleclass, struggling to make ends meet. Three of you are living in a small town in alabama making 30,000 struggling to make ends meet. In a white Rural Community with 25,000, you are struggling to make ends meet. So you have too much fun at the end of your money. 65 of americans dont have 500 in savings for an emergency. 65 percent dont have 500, but isnt a racial thing, it is a human thing, so if there is something going on in the world this is the global fis fish youy it away. Im going to repeat. By the way these are not just rich caucasian, they are rich russians from africans, they were just rich people from all parts of the world who got the memo. You can watch this online booktv. Org